Contents

Overview

When Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee visit the Ember Island Arcade, the siblings get competitive while playing the latest Fire Nation arcade game, Street Bender. Their fun may turn dangerous when their bending skills become involved.

Synopsis

While enjoying their stay on Ember Island, Lo and Li introduce the teenagers to the popular Ember Island Arcade. Having found themselves bored at a simple throwing-game booth, Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee respond to Azula's beckon to come see a different game. Azula explains that it is Street Bender, a fighting game in which two players control their own figurine warriors and have them battle each other until one victor stands. Azula, who has been winning Street Bender against other children at the arcade all weekend, suggests that she and her brother battle each other in the game, a proposal Zuko only accepts when Azula taunts him by choosing an Aang figurine as her playing piece.

After submitting a silver piece into the machine, Zuko chooses a figurine that has been modeled in his likeness. Mai questions disbelievingly about whether Zuko really chose his own character, a conversation that distracts the prince long enough for Azula to make her figurine punch Zuko's. Zuko protests that this was unfair because he does not know how to play. Azula explains the details of the game: the two metal rods located outside the mini arena control a respective character's movements. Pressing the buttons on the rods causes the character to use an attack, and once a character has been hit three times, that character has lost all his life bars and has lost. Consequently, Zuko now has only two life bars left.

Zuko accidentally torches the game in an attempt to utilize the super attack.

When the game resumes, Zuko deals his first blow on Azula's Aang figurine, so the two are now evenly scored. In retaliation, Azula uses a "super attack" by firebending into the metal rods and making her character hit Zuko's, despite not having mentioned this property of the game to Zuko earlier. Knowing her brother only has one life bar left, Azula decides prematurely that she will surely win. This enrages Zuko to the point that when he attempts to use his firebending super attack, the entire game goes up in flames. As they leave, the teenagers speak with one another about Street Bender's effects on people, with Ty Lee joking that the warning on the game should read, "No Zukos allowed."

Production notes

Transcript

Translations

Series continuity

The story of this comic takes place during the teenagers' stay on Ember Island, a period of time highlighted in "The Beach".

Trivia

Street Bender is named similarly to a real-world arcade game, Street Fighter.

Notes

↑Corey Lewis signed the final panel of the comic with the date, "Corey Lewis 2009". It should be noted that Nickelodeon Comics Club, an offshoot of Nickelodeon Magazine that was created to single out Nickelodeon's popular programming like SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender for special comic editions, was first published in 2009, making it possible that "Ember Island Arcade" was more specifically released in Nickelodeon Comics Club magazine, not Nick Magazine.